He at once travelled thither and took lodgings in the Central district. Mabuse saw him arrive at the railway-station, and an hour later he knew where he was staying. At last he had him within reach, in the place where he desired to accomplish his scheme of revenge and towards which he had been working, for Mabuse in reality had never left Berlin. In all the towns to which Wenk had travelled in search of the gambler, Mabuse had doubles, persons of his own gang, instructed by him. Munich was too small for the scheme Mabuse had in hand. The abysses of Berlin would be a safer hunting-ground, and the hunt began on the very next day. * * * * * That day Wenk had been describing to a junior colleague in the Berlin police his course of action in “the Mabuse case.” They had talked about it together, discussing a plan of operation, but the only conclusion they had come to was that the gambler should be allowed to show his own hand first. To aim at him in the dark would be likely to reveal to him prematurely the whereabouts of his pursuers. In the evening, when Wenk had taken a meal in the “Traube” restaurant, he visited a café, and then, tired out by his long discussion, he sought his lodgings. There a man accosted him, standing in a doorway removed from the light. “If you please, sir ...” said he. “What do you want?” asked Wenk reluctantly. “Would some cocaine be useful to you, sir?” Wenk went on without vouchsafing a reply, and he noticed that the man followed him, but when he came to the busy Friedrichstrasse he lost sight of him. Wenk soon took himself to task for having let the man escape him thus. He ought to have got into touch with this pedlar of illicit wares, for he belonged to the same stock as Mabuse. He was half inclined to go back, but the feeling of weariness was too strong for him and he went home. The next night he took the same way home from the restaurant, but the man was not there. Wenk lingered here and there, and then, as he approached his lodgings near the Police Market, a man came out of an entry towards him, saying in a whisper, “Do you want to see some nude dances?” Wenk stopped still, saying, “You have come just at the right time. I don’t belong to Berlin, and I should like to see the real night-life of this city just for once. Where are your dancers? Go ahead!” “Follow me, then. I’ll go in front, and when you see me go in somewhere, you come quick, guv’nor, ’cos of the peelers!”